


Sleep Is Underrated

by CatLovePower



Category: Salvation (2017)
Genre: Exhaustion, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Nightmares, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-30
Updated: 2017-07-30
Packaged: 2018-12-08 20:33:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11654220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CatLovePower/pseuds/CatLovePower
Summary: Set between episodes 102 and 103. Liam is sleep deprived. Darius pushes a little too far. Liam snaps and panics.





	Sleep Is Underrated

They have been working on the electromagnetic drive for three days or so. If Liam could catch maybe an hour of sleep a day, it was fine. He kept telling himself that anyway. Who needed sleep when the fate of the planet was at stake, right?

There was desperation creeping in the back of his mind, but he tuned it out with large amounts of coffee. Overworking wasn’t that bad, it kept his mind busy and prevented him from having that recurring dream about the end of the world, a long and intricate series of scenarios in which he always failed to save everyone, and her.

Darius’ constant nagging wasn’t helping either. The man seemed to be everywhere and nowhere. Appearing to criticize their theories and write on Croft’s board. Disappearing for hours, but then calling to remind them of new deadlines.

The real deadline was a big fiery ball of death coming for them in less than six months. Closer, every day, until…

*

Liam woke up with a start, feeling dead inside, his brain full of half remembered images of people burning, _Terminator_ style. It probably wouldn't happen that way anyway. Instead, the world would descend into chaos under an ash-Iaden sky. A new ice age to end the human race.

He had three messages from Darius. Two from Jillian. They made him frown and smile in that order. He wanted to answer, but words eluded him. His hands were shaking so bad he nearly dropped the phone on the desk. It started vibrating again, an awful grating sound which reverberated in the silence of the lab.

On the monitor in front of him, the huge computer kept trying new frequencies and silently logging the negative results. The amount of possible frequencies... It was dizzying. He could feel his heart beating in his chest, louder and more erratic with each beat.

He rubbed his eyes, hard, as if trying to rub an itch in his brain. He needed some sleep. In a real bed. Maybe even some food that didn't come out of a vending machine. He tried to leave a note to Croft, but it was unintelligible. It happened sometimes.

And just when he was about to leave and catch up with a week of lost sleep, the door slammed open and Darius waltzed into the room, Malcolm on his heels, both arguing and bickering, about numbers and science. They were way too loud. Way too real. The fleeting fear inside Liam's chest burst like a bubble and expanded until he was filled with nothing but panic and dread.

*

Seeing the shoeless guy ( _Liam Cole, MIT_ , Darius mentally corrected) suddenly lose his shit out of nowhere was unexpected and a bit disappointing. The guy just looked at them, then fell out of his seat and half crawled half ran to hide behind TESS’ servers.

“Is he crying?” Darius asked, with a hint of sarcasm in his voice. This was not going to help with the deadline…

“Don’t… Just…” Croft made a shooing gesture at Darius and made him leave the room, pushing him slightly when he wouldn’t move. They ended up downstairs, in what passed for a break room.

“What’s his problem?” Darius asked with a nod to the room upstairs.

“Panic attack,” Croft said with a sigh. “He’s stressed. He’ll be fine,” he added with Darius raised an eyebrow. “You’re asking too much of him, you know. He’s just a kid.”

“I'm pretty sure he's not,” Darius replied without missing a beat. But then he seemed to wonder out loud, as if he had never considered the question before, “How old is he anyway?”

“Not old enough to handle any of this.”

“None of us is.”

They stopped talking and thought about the end of the world for a while. Or maybe it was only Croft, and Darius was too busy scheming, already thinking about a way to get around this mishap. 

“He doesn’t like me very much,” Darius finally said. It wasn’t really a question, but he didn’t look totally convinced.

“You seem surprised.”

“I’m not used to it.”

“Figures…” Croft was sarcastic now.

Sure, he was grateful to Tanz industries for offering a place to stay and resources he could never have dreamed of to pursue his research. But there was something annoying about the man.

Seeing that Darius still didn’t understand, he tried to explain further, “You made him fly on that damn chopper of yours. Twice.”

“So?” Then again, that total lack of interest in other people when they didn’t serve his agenda.

“He’s terrified of heights.”

“How do you even know that?”

“We talked. I listened. That’s what normal people do.”

“And you do that with all your students? No wonder you’ve been working on that EM drive for so long…”

*

Liam could hear snippets of conversation from downstairs, but he tried to tune it out. He cradled his knees, tucked in his chin, and if he concentrated solely on the hum of the computer all around him, he could draw a breath. His chest was still heaving, but the warmth of the room and the lull of the servers were soothing. The computer didn’t care about his meltdown; it kept trying to solve their problem for them.

He took his shoes off and let TESS work for them for a while.

*

Much later, Croft came back with coffee and an apology from Darius. You could trust the man to delegate even that. But it was weirdly comforting.

“He said he’d make it up to you,” Croft assured him with an awkward pat on the shoulder.

“Should I be worried?”

“He didn’t give specifics, but he said he had an idea to get you to relax.”

“That… sounds bad,” Liam said, but he didn’t mind now that he had slept a little. The dread was gone, the absolute crushing terror that had no reason to be. Science and computers were reliable; they’d get through it.

“Wait and see. He might surprise you.”

**Author's Note:**

> And that’s how Darius came up with the silly idea that it was best for Liam to have Jillian around.


End file.
